Sorry once again for the delay in updating our news page. Whilst I was away fishing in Norway our computer crashed resulting in a complete loss of information relevant to updating our website.

Norway was an angling disaster, we didn't see a cloud or a fish in 3 days fishing and the air temperature was around 34% everyday, just like Scotland...not!

It was however great to catch up with my old friend Jan Daugaard. We did a few television programmes for Sky together. He now owns the Ingstad Østre beat on the river Stjørdal.

This is a truly beautiful place, the scenery is stunning, the river is magnificent and the accommodation though fairly basic is very comfortable. Add to that the quality of Jan's cooking, Jugens guiding and it becomes a great place to fish.

The early weeks are not about quantity of fish but shear size. Up and down the river during our stay the average size of those caught was around 20lb with a few in the 30lb bracket. If any one would like the details of Jan's fishing just drop me a line and I will see what availability he has.

Here in Scotland it has not been a good season so far, obviously not helped by the constant rising and falling water levels. We need a bit of settled weather but the forecast isn't too good at the moment.

We are hoping that the reports of big numbers of Grilse in the North East of Scotland will start to impact further south soon. I heard from a very reliable source today that the lower Oykel had 160 fish last week! I am assuming such numbers were mainly Grilse. A client of ours had 9 fish to his own rod by lunch yesterday!

The Dee appears to have suddenly awaken from its early summer slumber. Last week the Banchory beat had a fantastic time with exactly 50 Salmon landed, followed by 16 on Monday 23rd. Park at last started to show its true form with 20 landed on Saturday, the largest being 18lb. I am lead to believe that the majority of the fish being caught on the Dee are multi sea winter fish of 10lb plus, late running Springer's or just big summer fish?

I had a day on Ballogie last Thursday and although I didn't land a fish it was good to see a few and even get a couple of offers. Clive Williamson and Jonathon Sutton were on the river on Saturday at Commonty and Middle Blackhall. Clive had an excellent day landing two Salmon between 12lb and 15lb and losing two Sea trout which were actually in his hands when he lost them...don't ask, he's from the Emerald Isle!

Jonathon had a 8lb Salmon, a 5lb Grilse and a Sea trout, both fish dripping with sea lice . A fellow angler lost a big fish after 10 minutes thought to be in the 30lb class.

I was invited up to fish Glenfurness on the lovely River Findhorn by Patrick Fothringam last Tuesday and despite a late night warning on the Monday that the river had risen 5ft in 30 minutes, I still went! When I arrived she was sitting just below 3ft so we soon got cracking. On a lovely high water pool called Chain Pool Patrick spotted a few fish head and tailing and saw a fish boil at my fly. A few minutes late I had a good hard take and was into a lovely fresh fish. Landing her in a heavy river was not fun but after sending my host into the pitch black water she was successfully tailed. The fish had taken one of our orange Pot Bellied Pig tube flies fished on a sink tip line. Patrick also had a fish that day and ended the week with a very respectable 11 fish.

My previous trip to Findhorn was successful for my dear friend Ian Neale but alas not for me. I believe the story is recounted on Ian's excellent website ; http://www.speycaster.net/fishing_news.htm I will of course be consulting my lawyers soon!

Although the river was again very big, we had a great day on a wonderful beat with the Ospreys and Roe Deer for company. Ian managing a lucky fish and me doing long range catch and release, sums up my season !

I was on the Findhorn as our weeks Sea trout fishing on the Spey at Kinhurdy was beginning to be a complete wash out, such a shame when you look forward to a week so much. One high light was Jeremy Lee landing a 6.5lb Brown Trout and another was Simon Chew landing his second ever Salmon, it was sea liced and caught approximately 60 miles from the sea!. In a week we only had two nights really worth trying to fish and managed 4 between us. Oh well there's always next year! On the lower beats of the Spey there have been big catches recorded but as usual little is ever reported. Orton, Delphur, Rothes, Arndilly's etc have all been rumoured to be averaging very good catches.

When the Tweed stops yo yowing and the colour drops out there have been some superb Sea trout landed, Ian, one of my fly tyers has had some crackers up to 12.5lb and he isn't alone, Rowland who helps me in the shops has had quiet a few up to 8lb. I'm sure the Salmon will be joining them soon.

Having literally just written the last sentence I received this photo of a Pink [Pacific Salmon] caught at Boleside yesterday [21st]. It is most probably a fish from Norway/Russia where there is a reasonable population, these came from Russian fish farming in the 1960's.

Stephen Kay and his wife Nicola headed off to Mongolia recently to try and catch a even more unusual species. The Taimen can grow to huge proportions, they weren't lucky enough to catch one but they did get a couple of nice fish on the fly.

There have been a number of clients heading to sunnier shore's this year and who could blame them!.

Clive Williamson and David Adamson have both been to Cuba and experienced magnificent Tarpon fishing. Clive who has now been 3 times had his best year so far with multiple hook ups and plenty of fish landed. Clive is a huge fan of Sage Xi2 Saltwater rods and Tibor Gulfstream reels and this year was most successful using Rio tarpon sinking lines and his home tied saltwater patterns. If clients need any specialist flies tied please contact us, Clive will tie the best patterns on the best hooks but only for vast amounts of Vino! Remember Im his agent!!

I love this picture of David{Jones} holding on for dear life in case he is torn off the Skiff. He did manage to land some superb fish, but did also point out that you really needed quality equipment to handle 80lb plus Tarpon. He uses Abel reels to handle the raw power of a Tarpon run.

My good friend Alan Olivier from South Africa has recently been out to the Zambezi fishing for Tiger fish. That part of Africa has been experiencing record rainfall, just like here in Scotland. This impacted on the quality of the fishing as the majority of Tigers were swimming around the flooded land rather than in river. They did catch some quality fish. Alan's ideal outfit is a Sage Xi2 9' rated for a 9 line, attached to his Tibor Everglades reel is a 300/400gr fast sinking line but in the evening he swop's to a floating line as the fish feed closer to the surface.

I am discussing with Alan taking a trip to Alan's boat next year, if any one is interested in joining me please contact me.

Gamefish carries a large range of quality tackle and clothing to cater for any destination around the world. If we can help at all please contact us.

That's all for the moment, hopefully I will be able to add some more stories soon when I receive news of hoards of our Atlantic Salmon heading up the streams of their birth. Tight lines.